"This is for anyone who ever played for the Red Sox, anyone who ever rooted for the Red Sox, anyone who has ever been to Fenway Park. This is bigger than the 25 players in this clubhouse. This is for all of Red Sox Nation past and present. I hope they're enjoying it as much as we are." -- 10.27.04, Theo Epstein, Red Sox GM

' "We have to make the best of these 20 good years," [Red Sox owner John] Henry recalls saying.

"Not too long after, Werner came out with the script for a new sitcom that will premiere on NBC this week. The title: 'Twenty Good Years.'

"It may be the first time that two Red Sox owners have jointly dreamed up a television series, but that's only because they have not been at it that long. The two now are so close that they e-mail back and forth for hours during the middle of the night -- astonishing, considering that just five years ago, they barely knew each other, and each harbored his own dream of being the primary face of the team."-- 10.8.06, Behind the scenes, Werner juggles Sox, sitcoms, Boston Globe

Here's an Idea... How About Spending More Time, Energy, and Moneyto Make Sure the Boston Red Sox Return to RespectabilityBefore Another 86 Good Years Go By?

"So the winning run is at second base, with two outs, three and two to Mookie Wilson. A little roller up along first... behind the [first-base] bag! It gets through Buckner! Here comes Knight... and the Mets win it! ... [three minutes pass] ... If one picture is worth a thousand words, then you have seen about a million words, but more than that you have seen an absolutely bizarre finish of game 6 of the 1986 World Series, the Mets are not only alive, they are well, and they play the Red Sox in Game 7 tomorrow." -- 10.26.86, Vin Scully, NBC Sports play-by-play announcer

Can an El Guapo Signing Be Far Behind? A Tim Wakefield Extension?You Can Hear the Stampede to the Virtual Waiting Room for '07 Tickets Now

Gammons Still High on Josh Beckett

""The 16 wins were fine, but the 5.01 ERA and 36 gopher balls were a major disappointment to the Red Sox, who thought the 26-year old would be a No. 1 or 2 starter. The stuff is there; it's just that in New York and Toronto they can hit 97 mph gas into the streets. Next year he will make the adjustments, use his four-seamer, dominate down and away to right-handed batters and mix in his changeup better.

"In early 2005, when the new stadium was being built, the Cardinals advertized a 'stadium brick paver' program where you could purchase a customized brick to be placed in the sidewalk around the stadium. I got together with a few friends and we purchased this Sox tribute brick. I recently learned they placed the brick right in front of Gate 1 - a main entrance at Busch." -- 10.24.06, Bob from Erie, Penn.

"[de la Rosa] fell ill shortly after arriving in Miami on Friday from Chile, where the Dominican national had been working in a circus. On Saturday, he traveled to New York then to Providence, where two of his brothers live."-- 10.22.06, New York Daily News

"Philosophically, as a hitting coach, I like to keep it simple. Every hitter has got his own personal quirks at the plate and as a hitting instructor you’ve got to work within the framework of each hitter. There’s not just one way to hit. I’m a hard-worker, I believe in looking at a lot of video, being prepared, learning the pitchers we’re going to be facing. When I was in San Diego I did all of the advance scouting for our hitters on the pitchers that we were going to be facing."

"When a new pitcher comes into a game, [it's important to] give your hitters an idea of how they’re going to be pitched in a game," said Magadan. "David Ortiz probably isn’t going to be pitched the same way as an Alex Cora, so I think you’ve got to know your hitters and know what little bits of information they need about that pitcher that’s going to try to get them out that day."-- 10.20.06, Dave Magadan, Red Sox hitting coach

OCT. 19, 2006 -- It was a pulse-pounding, amazing, improbable comeback, wasn’t it? It had a little bit of everything: clutch performances from players who failed to impress during the regular season; stars overcoming injury; timely late-inning home runs; a lucky bounce or two; a ninth inning where the Sox, backs against the wall, dismantled the other guy’s lights-out closer; and when it was all said and done, the Red Sox would come together at the mound in a joyous throng and celebrate having won the American League Pennant. It would go down as the greatest comeback in Red Sox' history.

2004? Nope. Try 1986.

Before The Idiots, before John Henry and Larry Lucchino and Theo Epstein, before Dan Duquette, before The Curse, even before “25 men, 25 cabs,” there were John McNamara’s 1986 Red Sox, who overcame a 3-1 deficit in the ALCS – and a 5-2 deficit in the ninth inning of Game 5 – to the then-California Angels for the right to represent the American League in the World Series.

We all know what came 12 days later: defeat as humbling and draining as can possibly happen in the world of sports. Any self-respecting Red Sox fan felt a duty to obliterate the memory of that crushing season from his memory.

But if, instead of spitting the bit in epic, tragic fashion, the Red Sox had been able to close the deal 20 years ago, children from Springfield to Salem would be schooled in the magical summer of 1986, and its just as magical autumn, whose climax came not in the World Series, but the week before in the LCS, just as in 2004.

And now that 2004 has come and gone, bringing with it redemption and neutralization of all the bitterness of past years, the story of the 1986 ALCS deserves - needs – to be told, needs to find a new audience 20 years after the fact, to acknowledge heroic deeds and to remember just how close the Red Sox came to bowing out of the playoffs without even a chance at glory.

* * *

The 1985 edition of the Boston Red Sox defined mediocrity; they finished a perfect 81-81, 18 ½ games behind AL East leading Toronto, good for fifth place in the seven-team division. With an average attendance of 22,057 (which meant there were around 12,000 empty seats in the park every day), it’s safe to say that Red Sox fever was not exactly running wild in the streets of Boston. Though there were some exemplary individual performances – Wade Boggs won the batting title with a .368 BA, and Dwight Evans won yet another Gold Glove – expectations for the ’86 squad were low.

Indeed, the 1986 campaign promised to show little difference from the previous year. The team made few wholesale changes; the only really big move came in November of 1985, when the team worked a multi-player trade with the New York Mets, which distilled into the Sox sending Bob Ojeda and receiving Calvin Schiraldi and Wes Gardner. A few minor trades and some tentative dips in the free agency pool later (Mark Clear to the Brewers for Ed Romero, for example) and the team was done tinkering. Of the nine starters of the ’85 squad, all but one played the majority of the ’86 season (Romero, replacing Jackie Gutierrez at short, was the only new face on the starting nine).

One big difference was the emergence of future Hall-of-Famer Roger Clemens. In 1985, he missed most of the season with a shoulder injury. It’s difficult to conceive of it today, but by opening day 1986, few of baseball’s cognoscenti knew what Clemens would be able to bring to the Red Sox – especially given his poor spring training performance that year (he finished the vernal tune-up with an ERA over 10). He was fourth on the depth chart behind Hurst, Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd, and Al Nipper.

It was Clemens’ transcendent performance against the Seattle Mariners on April 29 that provided the first clue that 1986 might be a special year. In front of a now-inconceivably small crowd of 13,414, Clemens toed the rubber and proceeded to strike out 20 of the 30 batters he’d face, setting a major-league record.

In a town where the Celtics were still a juggernaut – on their way to winning yet another NBA championship and occupying the hearts and minds of the casual fan, Clemens and his otherworldly performance sent a thrill up the spine of Red Sox fans everywhere. Indeed it apparently did wonders for the Red Sox as well; before that game started their record stood at 8-8. They finished their home stand 6-2, went on an eight-game west coast trip, also going 6-2, and came back winning another home stand, 5-1. By May 21 their record stood at 26-13, good for a .667 winning percentage and a well-established lead in the AL East, one which they wouldn’t relinquish for the remainder of the season.

By October 5, 1986, despite dropping all four games of their final series with the second-place Yankees, the Red Sox closed the season with a 95-66 record, outpacing their closest competition by 5 ½ games. Clemens would finish with a 24-4 record and a 2.48 ERA. For the first time since 1975, the Red Sox were going to the postseason.

Memorializing,
Like you leaving in my mind
Misty water-colored memorializing
Of the way we were
Scattered players,
The ‘04 team we left behind
Digs we gave to one another
For the way we were
Can it be that it was all so awful then?
Or has time re-written every line?
If we had the chance to screw it up again
Tell me, would we? Could we?
Memorializing, may be beautiful and yet
What’s too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget
So it’s the gorilla
We will remember
Whenever we remember...
The way we were...
The way we were...

“The Red Sox front office declined to answer questions yesterday concerning a number of topics, including payroll, their interest in Japanese righthander Daisuke Matsuzaka, whether they were going to deal Manny Ramírez, their free agents, and pitcher Jon Lester, who was stricken with cancer during the season.

"Lucchino and Henry both declined to speak about threshold tax and the team's payroll because both of them indicated there are currently ``sensitive" basic agreement issues being discussed in New York. The basic labor agreement expires at the end of this year.”-- 10.18.06, Nick Cafardo, Boston Globe

Above: Armed policemen guard people accused of swindling, stealing and ticket scalping during a public sentencing rally at the Railway North Station in Chengdu in China's southwest Sichuan province. Thirty criminals were sentenced during the campaign. Local authorities have launched campaigns to crack down on ticket scalping, swindling, and stealing in order to assure the safety of passengers and improve the order of railway stations.

First ALCS Sweep Since Oakland Rocked the Red Sox in 1990Tigers Go to the Series for the First Time Since Winning It All in 1984Leyland's Comeback Gamble Pays Off, The Gambler Did Too

"I think early on in spring training we had a lot of good players. We didn't have a good team. And today I can make the statement that we've got a good team, and that's the thing that I'm proudest of." -- 10.14.06, Jim Leyland of the American League Champion Detroit Tigers talking about a team like the 2004 Red Sox

" 'Whether teams like the Yankees and Red Sox, who pay so much into revenue-sharing, like it or not, the fact is that this is good for the game,' says one club executive. 'If the Tigers win the World Series, it will be great for the game in a year with record attendance and record profits.'... "

"I'm not big on coaches changing teams, but Boston's hiring of John Farrell as pitching coach is one of those moves that could change the franchise. Farrell eventually will be a general manager, somewhere, and the Red Sox's 2007 season will depend greatly on the development of Josh Beckett, Jonathan Papelbon, Craig Hansen, Manny Delcarmen, Edgar Martinez and, in time, Clay Buchholz, Kris Johnson, Bryce Cox, Justin Masterson and others. In the last eight months, Boston has raided the Cleveland developmental organization for Farrell and farm director Mike Hazen."-- 10.12.06, Peter Gammons ESPN Insider Blog (by subscription only)

"You want to see someone go bezerk in a few weeks? Wait until Ben tells Jack the Sox didn't re-sign Pedro or Lowe in lieu of Matt Clement and David Wells. That's not going to go over well." -- 10.13.06, Eric Wilbur, Boston Sports Blog

Oct. 12, 2006 -- As the baseball world bid good winter to another four teams this past Columbus Day weekend, Red Sox partisans had cause to reflect on our team’s own mortality. Is elimination easier to accept when it comes quick and without warning as at the hand of a wild card limping into the postseason, or after a long and painful bout with woeful pitching and anemic hitting?

For Bostonians, last Saturday’s Yankee Elimination Day was like a second holiday in the same three-day weekend. But for long-suffering Yankees fans whose last October triumph predates those of both the Red Sox and White Sox, it is a hard swallow. When your roster is full of All-Stars, future Hall-of-Famers, and home run derby champions, and your Number 8 hitter is a two-time MVP with a $25 million salary, you must win. The lofty expectation is a small price to pay for a table tilted so much in your favor, for an economic ability to acquire any player you want and retain every player you acquire. Nevertheless, Yankee Fan’s pain is of little concern in New England. We have our own.

September 23 marked the mathematical elimination of our 2006 Boston Red Sox, but their spiritual exodus occurred long before. Agonizingly long before. It may have come a month earlier, when Mark Loretta lined out to Robinson Cano and sealed the Yankees’ five-game sweep, or perhaps nine days later in Oakland as Curt Schilling was chased off the mound during the low-water mark of a 2-7 road trip. It was different for everybody, that personal epiphany that our Friends in The Fens were a not-so-cheap imitation of an AL pennant contender, a malnourished frame to which National Leaguers and the Baltimore Orioles added ten pounds much like television does to bulimic actors.

Milton Bradley's Got Game for the A's, But the Mighty Tigers Go Home Up 2-0

"There's no surprise in me. I know why I came to the big leagues. When I went to Toledo this year, I didn't put my head down. I worked hard every day." -- 10.11.06, Alexis Gomez, another no-name leading the Tigers to the Series

OCT. 10, 2006 -- In my office, hanging in places of honor, I’ve proudly displayed the front and back covers of the New York Post’s October 21, 2004 edition, headlines screaming “Damned Yankees” and “What a Choke” in typical Post 48-point type. I didn’t hang up anything about the Red Sox winning the pennant.

A week later, when they won the World Series I didn’t hang up anything about that. No, what resonated with me was not the uplifting of the Sox to the rarified air of the Winner’s Circle; it was the abasement of the Yankees to the lowest low of their modern history.

It was, in short, Schadenfreude. And oh, does it feel good – when you’re on the right side of it. When it’s your team that’s getting its assets kicked in, it doesn’t feel very good at all.

Take for example the Pinstripers’ five-game sweep of the Sox at Fenway (a sweep that Gotham wags have already christened “The second Boston Massacre”) earlier this year. It caused Yankee fans everywhere to forget about the embarrassment of 2004 and revel in the Sox’ misfortunes. One didn’t hear about how the Yankees solidified their position as leaders of the AL East. One heard about how they took the boots to the Red Sox but good.

In fact, that was DOUBLE Schadenfreude. Not only did Bombers fans revel in our misfortune, most Sox fans gnashed their teeth not because we lost ground to the first place team, but because it was the Yankees who abased us so completely.

But such is the nature of a sports rivalry that redemption is ever around the next corner, and, if the rivalry is heated enough, your team doesn’t even have to be playing to take part.

OCT. 8, 2006 -- You don't have to know rocket science or the Theory of Relativity to understand the depth of concern that Red Sox fans have for the organizational direction. Not since 1966 has the franchise appeared so mediocre but not average as the Sox did during the final two months of 2006.

From 2003 to 2005, the Red Sox finished second in the AL East three times, advanced each year to the American League playoffs, and won the World Series in 2004. To an extent, long-suffering Sox fans give the organization a mulligan for 2006, including a disastrous series of illness and injuries and trades that (as always) require longer samples to judge fully. By what metric can we baseball outsiders judge the performance of the front office, most notably, Brookline's Theo Epstein. The GM stated, “We were a strong club. We took on so many holes because of injuries. With those gaps we got to a certain performance level...”

Last offseason the Sox wallowed in confusion, the Gang of Four at the Winter Meetings, key Sox front office figures defecting to other organizations, and a rumored bitter power struggle extant between Larry Lucchino and Epstein. Epstein apparently won, although we cannot know the terms of Lucchino's surrender. The Sox at least head into this offseason with a stable staff, although we must determine how we will evaluate Epstein going forward.

Obviously, Baseball Operations require 'bottom line' evaluation. Did the Sox win (enough), and if not, was the failure tactical or strategic? A strategic goal would include minor league development, to allow the Sox to compete for a championship annually, with a manageable payroll? Another strategic goal (including the business side) requires revenue growth to service debt, and improve the finances for capital expenditures on players. A third strategic goal includes defining the core of the team and securing its presence. As a corollary, extending David Ortiz's contract satisfies part of that goal of attracting and retaining talent. A fourth strategic choice is the use of Sabermetric evaluation versus 'traditional' player evaluation.

Why Can't We Get Good-Value Four-Tool World Series Heroes Like Dave Roberts?

Leave it to Weaver: SD Sox Fold to Cards, 2-0Wells is Good, But Not Good Enough EitherThe Shame of Losing Cla Meredith Gets a National ShowcaseJosh Bard Does His Best Doug Mirabelli ImpersonationWhy Can't Theo Pick Up Trash Heap Castoffs Like Jeff Weaver in July?

He Won't Be Forgotten, Or Easily ReplacedBoston Could Use More Guys Like Trot Nixon

Nixon Bids Adieu to Fans

``He's a loyal, deep, strong human being that I have a tremendous respect for. It was hard to watch without getting emotional, him walking off the field today, for no other reason than he deserves to be recognized, not because he is or is not coming back to Boston but because he means a whole lot to a lot of people."-- 10.1.06, the always graceful Gabe Kapler on Trot Nixon

"The newly accused all have issued their denials, naturally. Well, duh. You didn't expect Clemens to react to the report that his was one of the names -- I love this word -- 'redacted' from a search warrant affidavit filed in Phoenix at the end of May in connection with the Jason Grimsley case by saying, 'Hey, you got me. I loved being Roger Clemens too much to give it up, so I did what I needed to do in order to keep it going,' did you?"-- 10.2.06, Roger Clemens, former New York Yankee

The Man Who Takes All the Heat,Knew the Real Deal with PeteAnd Gammo Did Too ...

"I really worry for Omar Minaya that this could be a terrible deal. And I'll tell you why I object to Fern Cuza. I think the right thing is to do the best thing for your client. And the best thing for your client whose already made $92 million and is guaranteed $133 million. He's allowed to do basically what he wants to do. People leave him alone. Nobody made a big stink about his not going to the sixth game of the Yankees series, which I still think is perposterous. But in New York, well over half the media view him as a complete and utter mercenary who grovels to get one extra dollar. Pedro does not take kindly to any criticism. He's going to get killed in New York. And with the franchise run by a PR guy from New York named Stu Sucherman, cause he has the final say on every decision made because he's Fred Wilpon's PR hack, I just think he's in for big trouble. I think he could be miserable, or it's obvious there's a chance he's gonna break down. This has all the earmarks of a disaster and an ugly way for his career to end." -- 12.14.04, Peter Gammons on WEEI

“ 'I wish Lucchino was here,' Pedro said. Speaking of an airport meeting he had in the Dominican Republic with Lucchino and John Henry, he went on: 'I could tell Lucchino like I did before when I tilted my glasses down and tell him that I got four years and he goes, ‘No, bull%#@!.’ I told him I got four years, after that they were leaving for the Winter Meetings, so now you know how much time they had to work it out.' ” -- 6.28.06, Feeding the Monster blog

The “Curt’s Pitch
for ALS” program is a joint effort by Curt and Shonda Schilling and The
ALS Association Mass Chapter to strike out Amyotrophic Lateral
Sclerosis, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

For the fourth consecutive year, SHADE Foundation of America will be represented at the Boston Marathon by a team raising funds for SHADE. SHADE is currently seeking marathon runners to join the team . For more information on running with Shonda Schilling on SHADE’s team or sponsoring runners, please visit SHADE's marathon page here.The SHADE Foundation thanks Red Sox Nation for joining in their fight to save future generations from melanoma.